In April 2014, David Alaba and Toni Kroos (1st, 3rd from left) lost 4-0 to Madrid with FC Bayern in the premier class. Today both play for Real.
Photo: imago/Schiffmann
Thinking positively isn’t that easy these days at Bayern Munich. Despite the 4-0 win against Bayer Leverkusen on Friday, despite the autumn crisis being overcome, at least arithmetically.
Actually, the football circus in Europe should show Bayern the way to the Bundesliga top game next Saturday at Borussia Dortmund. This Tuesday we face Viktoria Plzeň. That would have fitted quite well: a non-satisfactory opponent who can be played apart beautifully and strengthens self-confidence in front of what the tabloids like to call the German Clásico. But first of all, BVB is so irritated after the 2: 3 on Saturday in Cologne that there should hardly be a duel as smooth (and pleasant for Bayern) as in previous years. And secondly, the not so unimportant assistants Thomas Müller and Joshua Kimmich have once again been infected with Covid, which should make the warm-up for the Bundesliga classic and also the mandatory task against Viktoria Plzeň a little more difficult.
Memories wake up. When Plzeň was in Munich for the last time, Franck Ribéry, Arjen Robben and Bastian Schweinsteiger were still driving the ball through the Munich Arena. Back then, in the fall of 2013, Pep Guardiola gave the orders. Back then, Bayern were aiming for no less than world domination. They had just won the treble of the German Championship, DFB Cup and Champions League under Jupp Heynckes, and what could possibly get worse after that with the best, most brilliant, most successful coach in the world? Guardiola enjoyed this reputation after his sabbatical in New York.
In autumn 2013 Viktoria Plzeň was a grateful opponent on this path. Bayern won 5-0, goals were scored by Ribéry, twice, Schweinsteiger, Alaba and Götze. President Uli Hoeneß raved about “a luxury squad that is unparalleled in Europe,” and CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge thought this team had reached a new level after winning the Champions League. Only Guardiola grumbled. When asked if this was a perfect game, he replied that his team was still a long way from it. “Perfect? no Today we played well, but not perfectly. It would be boring if it were perfect now.«
There was more truth and foreboding in it than Hoeneß, Rummenigge and Guardiola would have liked. Bayern won their preliminary round group ahead of Manchester City and also played their way into the semi-finals against Arsenal and Manchester United with the ease expected of Guardiola. Pep Guardiola’s favorite enemy, Real Madrid, was waiting there.
The first leg at the Bernabéu was lost 1-0 after a goal by Karim Benzema, but what happened at home in Munich was much worse. Heavens, what an inferno! 0:4! It’s hard to find anything comparable in recent annals, perhaps an equally big defeat in St. Petersburg, but that happened away from home and in the Uefa Cup, which the eternal Bayern mantra Franz Beckenbauer had not accidentally called the losers’ cup.
In the years that followed, things didn’t go so well with Guardiola and Bayern when it came to his Spanish homeland in Europe. In 2015 he failed with Bayern in the semifinals of the Champions League at his heart club FC Barcelona, another year later at Atlético Madrid, and then Guardiola was already gone. Nothing came of the world domination that FC Bayern wanted to achieve under the Catalan maestro.
